The effect of jitter on an imaging FTIR spectrometer

Line of sight (LOS) jitter produces temporal modulations of the signals which are detected in the focal plane of a temporally modulated imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer. A theoretical treatment of LOS jitter effects is given, and is compared with the results of measurements with LIFIRS1 (the Livermore Imaging Fourier Transform InfraRed Spectrometer). The identification, isolation, quantification and removal of jitter artifacts in hyperspectral imaging data by means of principal components analysis is discussed. The theoretical distribution of eigenvalues expected from principal components analysis is used to determine the level of significance of spatially coherent instrumental artifacts in general, including jitter as a representative example. It is concluded that an imaging FTIR spectrometer is much less seriously impacted by a given LOS jitter level than a non imaging FTIR spectrometer.